The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, guaranteed a European contribution of $1bn (£630m; €890m) for 2004 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

But he warned that the European Union, with its 15 sovereign states, sometimes worked slowly. President Prodi was speaking last week at the closing of an international conference in Paris of representatives of the fund, which was created in June 2002.

The global fund supports country based interventions against disease. Since its creation it has received about $4.6bn in pledges and $1.4bn in actual donations to finance more than 150 programmes in 92 countries. Of this amount 60% has been allocated to Africa and 65% has …